Outpost
An Outpost is the first step towards creating a Town; it is created by giving the Build command to a unit with the Create Outpost special ability. Absent bad luck, it will grow into a Hamlet in as few as 3 turns, though the average is much higher. Outpost Location The game will not permit giving the build command in an invalid location, but valid locations for an Outpost are defined as follows: *May not be located on Ocean, Shore, a Tower of Wizardry, or a Node. *May not be located within 3 squares of any other Outpost or Town. *The Surveyor will note that you cannot create an outpost on a lair, but this is a moot point, as you cannot move your settlers into the square without destroying the lair. It is also impossible to create an Outpost if 100 Outposts or Towns already exist in the game. Outpost Size When first created, an outpost starts out with 3 filled in housing symbols: Usually, those symbols will be a , but Dark Elves and High Elves instead have a , and Gnolls, Klackons, Lizardmen, and Trolls instead have a . The differences are only cosmetic. Every turn, the Outpost has a chance to grow by 1-3 symbols, and a chance to shrink by 1-2 symbols. When all the symbols are filled in, the Outpost becomes a Hamlet; if by bad luck all the symbols should be lost, the Outpost will be deserted and vanish. Outpost Growth The chance of outpost growth is 1% x Maximum Population plus modifiers for Race, Minerals, and Spells, as follows: Outpost Shrinking The chance of outpost shrinkage is a base of 5%, only modified by spells: Combat If a hostile unit successfully enters an Outpost, either because there are no defenders, or because it defeated the defenders, the Outpost is immediately destroyed; no loot is gained, and no is lost. It is impossible to capture a normal Outpost; if you want to, wait for it to grow into a Hamlet. Somewhat oddly, destroying an undefended Outpost does not give a diplomatic penalty. Known Bugs Occasionally, you will see a neutral Outpost that actually has 1+ citizen; it actually functions in all ways as a Hamlet, and can be captured as normal. An Outpost will always get destroyed at the end of combat, however it might be destroyed multiple times after a single combat. When this happens, the newest city still existing in the game will get destroyed instead every single time after the first, correct destruction of the outpost. Destroying an outpost that is also the newest city in the game multiple times still triggers the bug, and erases the next newest city along with it. Razing an Outpost has no Diplomatic Reaction associated with it at all and does not start a war unlike attacking a normal city. Razing an Outpost does not check for the presence of a Wizard's Fortress, if one is present, the game will crash. Any spell that has a chance of destroying buildings in a city will automatically destroy an Outpost if it is affected. This might be an undocumented, but intended feature, but might also be a bug : The building destruction process also handles loss of population : Although no spells in the game are currently capable of reducing the population of a city to zero, if it was possible, the city would get destroyed instead of being reduced into an Outpost containing buildings, and as a side effect if the city already had zero population before the spell effect due to being an Outpost, it also gets destroyed. Spells capable of destroying Outposts this way include Raise Volcano, Earthquake, Call the Void and Meteor Storm.